The invention relates to a system for medical emergency care and monitoring of a patient.
In the diagnosis and treatment of critically injured patients, severely injured patients, or patients with multiple traumas, there is a need to be able to perform clinical processes within a very short time in order to minimize lasting damage to the patient and thus to minimize clinical follow-up and health care costs.
Typically, the patient is taken by emergency technicians to a so-called trauma room, where he is first physiologically stabilized by life-support measures. In some places, the first information on possible internal injuries is also collected using an ultrasound apparatus. After that, the patient is taken to radiology, for instance to take top views of the skull, cervical spine, chest, abdomen, and anterior-posterior and/or lateral views of the pelvis. Depending on how the hospital is equipped, these views are taken either with a conventional x-ray unit, partially supplemented by images from a computed tomography (CT) scanner, or the views are taken only with a CT scanner. If both a conventional x-ray unit and a CT scanner are used, the patient must as a rule be transferred from one table to another and moved to a different examination room. After his stay in radiology, the patient often returns to the trauma room for remaining stabilization, before finally being taken to an operating room or to a room in an intensive care unit. The numerous routes between different rooms and/or units of the hospital, and moving the patient from one table to another in every room are both time-consuming and not always wise for the health of the patient in view of his extremely severe injuries. Also, during the examinations and along the way there, it is not always possible to monitor the patient's vital functions continuously and to care for him adequately.
Various systems have become known in which various imaging equipment has been fused or combined into one joint system. From German Patent Disclosure DE 197 11 499 A1, for instance, a radiological diagnostic unit with a CT scanner and an x-ray unit have a common holding device. The holding apparatus is adjustable along a guide rail from a first position, associated with the CT scanner, to a second position, associated with the x-ray unit.
In German Published, Nonexamined Patent Application DE 198 53 463 A1, a plurality of multiple examination systems with many imaging systems have been disclosed; the imaging systems are disposed on a common support and can be associated with the patient's bed by moving the carrier relative to the bed of one of the imaging systems in succession.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,814 discloses a diagnosis and/or treatment system that has a C-arm device. The associated table can be pivoted outward 90° to allow a mobile “ring arm CT scanner” to be taken to the table. With this diagnostic and/or treatment system, a full-body scan of the patient is not possible.
German Patent DE 199 21 280 C1 shows a radiological diagnostic unit in which a CT scanner can also be operated as a conventional radiological diagnostic unit, in that the beam emitter that is present for the sake of the computed tomography can be associated with both a row detector for the computed tomography and a further beam receiver.
In a Siemens AG brochure entitled “SOMATOM Emotion, Balance, Esprit-Sliding Gantry”, No. A91001-M2120-G151-01-7600, a system comprising a CT scanner and an x-ray unit is also described for angiography. Here, the patient holding apparatus has a table that protrudes past a base on one side. By moving the CT scanner, which is movable along a guide rail on the floor, the protruding part can be introduced into the patient opening of the CT scanner, so that CT images are possible. The angiography device can also be positioned in the region of the protrusion, to take corresponding images.